The Provost

Shortly after the Battle of Waterloo, I began to see that a change was coming in among us. There was less work for the people to do, no outgate in the army for roving and idle s...

The next great handling that we had in the council after the general election, was anent the choice of a minister for the parish. The Rev. Dr Swapkirk having had an apoplexy, th...

It was at the Michaelmas 1813 that I was chosen provost for the third time, and at the special request of my lord the earl, who, being in ill health, had been advised by the fac...

Mr M'Lucre, going to London, as I have intimated in the foregoing chapter, remained there, absent from us altogether about the space of six weeks; and when he came home, he was...

After the close of the American war, I had, for various reasons of a private nature, a wish to sequestrate myself for a time, from any very ostensible part in public affairs. St...

Heretofore all my magisterial undertakings and concerns had thriven in a very satisfactory manner. I was, to be sure, now and then, as I have narrated, subjected to opposition,...

Nothing very material, after Jeanie Gaisling's affair, happened in the town till the time of my first provostry, when an event arose with an aspect of exceeding danger to the li...

During the same just and necessary war for all that was dear to us, in which the volunteers were raised, one of the severest trials happened to me that ever any magistrate was s...

I have already related, at full length, many of the particulars anent the electing of the first set of volunteers; the which, by being germinated partly under the old system of...

As I have said, my third provostry was undertaken in a spirit of sincerity, different in some degree from that of the two former; but strange and singular as it may seem, I real...

Death is a great reformer of corporate bodies, and we found, now and then, the benefit of his helping hand in our royal burgh. From the time of my being chosen into the council;...

The volunteers began in the year 1793, when the democrats in Paris threatened the downfall and utter subversion of kings, lords, and commons. As became us who were of the counci...

The attainment of honours and dignities is not enjoyed without a portion of trouble and care, which, like a shadow, follows all temporalities. On the very evening of the same da...

The spirit of opposition that kithed towards me in the affair of Robin Boss, the drummer, was but an instance and symptom of the new nature then growing up in public matters. I...

When, as is related in the foregoing chapter, I had nourished my knowledge of the council into maturity, I began to cast about for the means of exercising the same towards a sat...

It was in the course of the winter, after the decease of Bailie M'Lucre, that the great loss of lives took place, which every body agreed was one of the most calamitous things t...

In the course of these notandums, I have, here and there, touched on divers matters that did not actually pertain to my own magisterial life, further than as showing the temper...

The repair of the kirk was undertaken by contract with William Plane, the joiner, with whom I was in terms at the time anent the bigging of a land of houses on my new steading a...

Upon a consideration of many things, it appears to me very strange, that almost the whole tot of our improvements became, in a manner, the parents of new plagues and troubles to...

The sough of the dissolution of parliament, during the whole of the summer, grew stronger and stronger, and Mr M'Lucre and me were seemingly pulling at opposite ends of the rope...

Shortly after the foregoing tribulation, of which I cannot take it upon me to say that I got so well rid as of many other vexations of a more grievous nature, there arose a thin...

Mr Peevie was not a little proud of the part he had played in the storm of the council, and his words grew, if possible, longer-nebbit and more kittle than before, in so much th...

Soon after the foregoing transaction, a thing happened that, in a manner, I would fain conceal and suppress from the knowledge of future times, although it was but a sort of spr...

But a sad accident shortly after happened, which had the effect of making it as little pleasant to me to vex Mr Hickery with a joke about the Tappit-hen, as it was to him. Widow...

In ancient times, Gudetown had been fortified with ports and gates at the end of the streets; and in troublesome occasions, the country people, as the traditions relate, were in...

But the new member was, in some points, not of so tractable a nature as many of his predecessors had been; and notwithstanding all the couthy jocosity and curry-favouring of his...

The first question that changed the bark of Mr Hickery, was my proposal for the side plainstones of the high street. In the new paving of the crown of the causey, some years bef...

At the conclusion of my second provostry, or rather, as I think, after it was over, an accident happened in the town that might have led to no little trouble and contention but...

Just about the end of my first provostry, I began to make a discovery. Whether it was that I was a little inordinately lifted up by reason of the dignity, and did not comport my...

The spirit by which the Smeddumites were actuated in ecclesiastical affairs, was a type and taste of the great distemper with which all the world was, more or less, at the time...

In the course of the summer following the baptism, of which I have rehearsed the particulars in the foregoing chapter, Bailie Mucklehose happened to die, and as he was a man lon...

The general election in 1812 was a source of trouble and uneasiness to me; both because our district of burghs was to be contested, and because the contest was not between men o...

My old friend and adversary, Bailie M'Lucre, being now a man well stricken in years, was one night, in going home from a gavawlling with some of the neighbours at Mr Shuttlethri...

It must be allowed in the world, that a man who has thrice reached the highest station of life in his line, has a good right to set forth the particulars of the discretion and p...

The affair of the pressgang gave great concern to all of the council; for it was thought that the loyalty of the burgh would be called in question, and doubted by the king's min...

I have had occasion to observe in the course of my experience, that there is not a greater mollifier of the temper and nature of man than a constant flowing in of success and pr...

The calamity of the storm opened and disposed the hearts of the whole town to charity; and it was a pleasure to behold the manner in which the tide of sympathy flowed towards th...

The divor, Robin Boss, being, as I have recorded, reinstated in office, soon began to play his old tricks. In the course of the week after the Michaelmas term at which my second...

But although in the main I was considered by the events and transactions already rehearsed, a prudent and sagacious man, yet I was not free from the consequences of envy. To be...

I had long been sensible that, in getting Mr Pittle the kirk, I had acted with the levity and indiscretion of a young man; but at that time I understood not the nature of public...

I could plainly discern that the prudent conduct which I had adopted towards the public was gradually growing into effect. Disputative neighbours made me their referee, and I be...

The repair of the kirk, the next job I took in hand, was not so easily managed as that of the causey; for it seems, in former times, the whole space of the area had been free to...

For a long period of time, I had observed that there was a gradual mixing in of the country gentry among the town's folks. This was partly to be ascribed to a necessity rising o...

Nor did I get every thing my own way, for I was often thwarted in matters of small account, and suffered from them greater disturbance and molestation than things of such little...

Intending these notations for the instruction of posterity, it would not be altogether becoming of me to speak of the domestic effects which many of the things that I have herei...

It was an understood thing at first, that, saving in the matter of guns and other military implements, the volunteers were to be at all their own expenses; out of which, both tr...

Bailie M'Lucre, as I have already intimated, was naturally a greedy body, and not being content with the profits of his potatoe rig, soon after the election he set up as an o'er...